RESURRECTION AND TRUTH

Now that we're into the Easter Season, it's a good time to talk about the resurrection story of Jesus.  As mentioned in my post, "Getting Real about Easter" the resurrection story cannot be considered a factual event, apart from the fact that it is a story. The only way to say it is a fact, is that one must believe it to be a fact.

STAGNANT FACTS AND TRANSCENDENT TRUTHS

Believing something to be factual that cannot be proven factual is unreasonable.  My argument against treating the resurrection of Jesus as a fact is that if considered a fact, it becomes historical; if it is historical, it becomes one-time phenomenon and nothing more.  It becomes an unsolved mystery which is void of understanding and meaning. There is no such thing as a transcendent fact.  Facts are stagnant, whereas truths are transcendent.

That the resurrection story of Jesus has been given meanings argues for transcendence and it takes on the qualities of myth rather than its being a mysterious fact.  A mysterious fact is still a fact and remains stagnant.   A mythic mystery is an invitation to explore and apply its transcendent meanings without the necessity of establishing why something happened or how it happened.  What is relevant is the story itself, not whether it is factual. 

I can hear the groans of theologians saying, "But that is the whole point of the resurrection - to demonstrate that God is involved in history, in the very structure of the mystery called life; that's God's love is so strong that it has defeated death. That's why the resurrection story has to be a historical event!" 

Think about that for a moment. 

Just think.  

At what point hasn't God and God's love been in involved the mystery of human life and, by extension, human history? 

In what way does the resurrection story make that truth more evidential?

In what tangible way does believing this one story to be a historical fact demonstrate death has been defeated when people have been dying every second of every day since that event?

Just think about that while I press on to some of the truths contained in the resurrection story of Jesus. 

The truths contained in myth are perceived and treated as guiding principles in their applicability to a variety of  human conditions and experiences.  Understanding a truth's applicability is a matter of subjective perception and mental processing. 

Bear with me on this for a bit.

SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS

For example, the writers of the United States' Declaration of Independence understood the difference between truth and fact when they said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."  In other words, there was no way to verify "these truths" apart from a shared, self-evident perception, and understanding of them as guiding principles. The truths they were talking about were things like "all men are created equal..." . 

Were they talking about facts? 

No. 

There was virtually no factual evidence at the time to demonstrate that any equality, for example, existed between living human beings.  In fact, one can effectively argue today that equality is anything but factual.  That we are created equally is a principle, a truth that can be applied to a variety of human conditions and situations, but it is far from being universally accepted as fact, and there is no way to prove it factually.

Such truths remain a matter of shared perception of a transcendent idea that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were willing and eager to experiment with to see if could become realized as a guiding principle in the formation of a new nation.  In many ways, the jury is still out on that.  As such, the equality of human beings remains a truth, a guiding (living) principle, as opposed to a stagnant (dead) fact.
 
THE RESURRECTION APPLIED AND EXPERIENCED

The truths contained in resurrection myth about Jesus, and I would assume other myths like it, can be applied and experienced at a personal and communal level.  

JESUS LIVES

The story of Jesus' resurrection serves to validate his teachings; that there are some things death cannot destroy, such as truths.  One truth established in the mythic story of Jesus' resurrection is that if his teachings remain relevant and life-giving, the teacher lives on.  Jesus lives in his teachings.

For example, a truth expressed in the Bible is that where two or three are gathered in Jesus' name, he is present.  This remains true in any situation where two or more people gather together to talk about person who has passed on or is not present.  Talking about someone evokes that person's presence within our minds. The person, in mind, is present.

LETTING GO

The Passion/Resurrection story of Jesus points out that letting go of life can lead to life, that letting go of an unhealthy ego, opens a door for a better sense of being, new sense of life. It can allow one  to walk through the closed doors of bias, discrimination, and fear.   People experience this type resurrection probably more frequently than they are aware of.  Becoming detached from unproductive struggles and losing battles often allows one to move on to a new perspective of life and a new life in a very real sense as in finding a new and better job, an improved home-life, and new relationships, for example.  The resurrection story can raise one above the grim, meaningless world of fact, to the aspirational and inspirational world of truth.  The resurrection story encourages one to act and live in faith beyond belief.

MORE TO LIFE

The more common meaning that Christians, in particular, attach to this mythic story is that it hints to there being more to life than this life; that life is truly mysterious and death is nothing more than a transition from a physical manifestation to a spiritual manifestation of being.  While I can accept this as a meaning one can derive from this story, I personally remain agnostic towards it. 

It may be true and I wouldn't argue against its being a truth, but I am leery of the temptation to add meanings to a meaning that can take on moral overtones; such as, good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell after they die.

[NOTE: This is one of the problems humans have in dealing with truths.  They tend to run with them, instead of holding them lightly. Truths are only effective when they are allowed to guide and hold us. If guided and grasped tightly they become ineffective and stagnant like a fact.  Truths are fragile and can easily fragment if applied concretely.] 


PAUL - CONVERSION AS RESURRECTION

I believe my friend, the apostle Paul, understood the story of Jesus' resurrection in all of the ways described above.  For him, the truth of the resurrection was more real than any other reality in his life. In one of his more inspired moments, Paul describes, what I refer to as the three affective elements of human progress, faith, hope, and love.  Paul derives these elements from his personal resurrection experience, of letting go of what he believed was most important and what most defined his life, and allowing himself to be redefined and resurrected by his vision of the "risen Christ."  

For Paul, this experience was so great that it became the fact of his life.  At times, Paul becomes so passionate about this experience that he applies it concretely, and doing so causes him to struggle with its implications and its applications to his own life and what he saw going on around him.  Nevertheless, I feel Paul was able to catch himself at becoming this way and the result is that Paul becomes an interesting study in his own right.  Paul was able to reach beyond his concrete moments and obtain wonderful, momentary insights regarding the truths found as a result of his resurrection experience.

LIVING BY FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE

Paul's conversion is a resurrection story in its own right.  It too takes on mythic qualities in his seeing a light that blinds him to what he thought was the clear-sighted, concrete path of his ideological beliefs and it invited him - forced him (in Paul's view) to follow a path perceived by faith  rather than sight.  For Paul seeing is not believing.  For Paul believing is a matter of faith, not a matter of fact.  As a result, Paul talks about a sure hope or a confident hope, but for Paul hope remains hope.  Hope never provides a given outcome but it serves to guide him along an unknown path.  For Paul, love is the strongest of the affective elements.  Love is what undergirds both faith and hope, and love is strongest when it persists against a mountain of insurmountable fact.

I am far less obsessed with the resurrection story than Paul.  After all, I did not have the same experience he did, and had I, I might have become as insistent on its importance as Paul did. At any rate, I'm more cautious about my personal experiences. This may have more to do with my age than anything else, but I realize that having my own, less than earth-shattering, epiphanic moments about the resurrection doesn't give me license to insist they have a particular meaning that other people should accept. 

I continue to learn from Paul's teachings about Jesus, but I don't feel bound to agree with him on anything, including the resurrection.  That I agree with Paul on a number of things is more intellectual than anything else.  For example, something I don't agree with is when Paul talks about some people being predestined for salvation (I'm sure he felt he was) and others not.  I find that whole notion of predestination contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

For Paul (and I believe he is correct in this) what can be extracted from the Jesus' resurrection myth are truths regarding faith, hope, and love; that if these three affective elements are permitted to play a role in one's daily routine, one can sense life being renewed and resurrected at any given time and in any given experience.  For me, this is the power of the resurrection myth and the truths it contains.

Until next time, stay faithful.